Ibn al-Najjar said: “He is the imam of hadith scholars in his time and the chief leader in memorization, meticulous verification, thorough knowledge in the sciences of hadith, trustworthiness, nobility, and excellence in writing and beautiful recitation. He is the seal of this science.”

Born in a family imbued with knowledge, he began his scholarly training at the age of six, attending the fiqh gatherings of his older brother Sa’in al-Din Hibat Allah ibn al-Hasan (d. 563) and learned Arabic and grammar at the hand of his maternal grandfather Abu al-Mufaddal al-Qurashi. Two of his uncles and one of his brothers were successively in charge of the head judgeship in Damascus, Abu al-Ma`ali Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn `Ali al-Qurashi (d. 537), Abu al-Makarim Sultan ibn Yahya (d. 530), and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan.

By the time Ibn `Asakir reached puberty he already possessed hadith certifications from the scholars of Damascus, Baghdad, and Khurasan. At age twenty, after his father died, he travelled around the Islamic world in pursuit of hadith narrations and performed pilgrimage, returning to Damascus and travelling again on and off between 519 and 533, “alone but for the Godwariness he took as his companion,” hearing hadith from 1,300 male shaykhs and 80-odd female shaykhas in Baghdad, Mecca, Madina, Asbahan, Naysabur, Marw, Tibriz, Mihana, Bayhaq, Khusrujird, Bistam, Herat, Azerbaijan, Kufa, Hamadhan, Ray, Zanjan, Bushanj, Sarkhas, Simnan, Jarbadhqan, Mawsil and elsewhere.

After 533 he sat teaching hadith in a corner of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, then in the Dar al-Sunna school (subsequenty renamed Dar al-Hadith) built for him by al-Malik al-`Adil Nur al-Din Mahmud ibn Zanki. He shunned all kinds of material possessions and turned down the office of head preacher, concentrating on teaching, writing, and worshipping. His most famous student was the sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, who attended his funeral behind the imam al-Qutb al-Naysaburi.

Ibn `Asakir was buried at the Bab al-Saghir cemetary, next to his father, near the grave of the Caliph Mu`awiya ibn Abi Sufyan.

Ibn `Asakir authored over a hundred books and epistles and narrated under five hundred hadith lessons. Among his larger works:

1. Tarikh Dimasqh in eighty volumes.1 Ibn Khallikan said that it contains, like al-Tabari’s Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, several books that can be read independently.

11. Al-Suba`iyyat in seven volumes, listing narrations with chains containing only seven narrators up to the Prophet — Allah bless and greet him –.

12. Tabyin Kadhib al-Muftari Fima Nusiba ila Abi al-Hasan al-Ash`ari, a defense of al-Ash`ari and his school which he divided into the following sections:

a) Genealogy of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari

b) Prophetic hadiths that pertain to him

c) Al-Ash`ari’s renown for knowledge

d) His renown for piety and worship

e) His struggle against innovations and their proponents

f) Dreams that indicate his high standing

g) Five generations of his students2

h) Those who attacked al-Ash`ari and his students

He concluded the book with the following lines of poetry:

I have chosen a doctrine that in no way resembles innovation But which successors faithfully took from predecessors. Those who are impartial declare my doctrine sound While those who criticize it have abandoned impartiality.